The Story of Julia Page Part 18

"Perhaps she will," her aunt said. "Perhaps, again, she won't. But at all events, it's a rather flat business, all this rushing about to dinners and dances; it'll last a few years perhaps--then what? I tell you what, my dear, there's only one good thing in this world, and that's _work_--self-expression. It hurts my pride every time I see a nice girl growing older year after year, idle, expensive, waiting for some man to miraculously happen along and take her out of it. I tell you the interesting lives are those of people who've had to work up from the bottom. A working girl may have her troubles, but they're _real_. Why, let's suppose that Barbara marries, that she marries the man her mother has picked out, for example, still she doesn't get away from the tiring, the sickening conventions that all her set has laid down for her! I wish I had my own girlhood to live over--I know that!" finished the older woman, with a gloomy nod.

"Miss Toland seems to me to have everything in the world," Julia said, in childish protest. "She's--she's beautiful, and every one loves her.

She's always been rich enough to do what she pleased, and go places, and wear what she liked! And--and"--Julia's eyes watered suddenly--"and she's a lady," she added unsteadily. "She's always been told how to do things, she's--she's different from--from girls who have had no chances, who--"

Her voice thickened, speech became too difficult, and she stopped, looking down at her teacup through a blur of tears. Miss Toland watched her for a silent moment or two; despite all her oddities, no woman who ever lived had a kinder heart or a keener insight than Anna Toland. It was in a very winning tone that she presently said:

"Tell me a little something about yourself, Miss Page!"

"Oh, there's nothing interesting about _me_!" Julia said, ashamed of showing emotion. She jumped up, and began to put the kitchen in order.

But the recital came, nevertheless, beginning with Chester, and ending with Julia's earliest memories of the O'Farrell Street house. The girl tumbled it out regardless of sequence, and revealing far more than she knew. Julia told of the episode of Carter Hazzard; she repeated the conversation she had overheard at the club.

Miss Toland did not once interrupt her; she listened in an appreciative silence. They washed and put away the dishes, straightened the kitchen, and finally found themselves standing in the reception room, Julia still talking.

".... so you see why it sounds so funny to me, your talking about your niece," Julia said. "Because she--she seems to me such _miles_ ahead--she seems to have everything I would like to have!" She paused, and then said awkwardly: "I'll never be a lady, I know that. I--I wish I had a chance to be!"

And she sat down at the little Mission table, and flung her arms out before her, her face tired and wretched, her blue eyes dark with pain.

Miss Toland's face, from showing mere indulgent interest, took on a sharper look. She was a quick-witted woman, and this chanced to touch her in a sensitive spot.

"As for a lady, ladies are made and not born," she said decidedly.

"Don't ever let them fool you. Barbara may run around until she's tired talking about belonging to the Daughters of Southern Officers; she can stick a sampler up here, and lend a Copley portrait to a loan exhibition now and then; but you mark my words, Barbara had to learn things like any other girl. One sensible mother in this world is worth sixteen distinguished great-grandmothers!"

Julia said nothing; she began to think it was time for her to go. But Miss Toland was well launched in a favourite argument.

"Why, look here," said the older woman, who was enjoying herself, "you're young, you're pretty, you're naturally inclined to choose what is nice, what is refined. You say you're not a lady--how do you know?

You may take my word for it--Julia, your name is?--Julia, then, that if you make up your mind to be one, nothing can stop you. Now I've been thinking while we talked. Why couldn't you come here and try this sort of thing? You could keep things running smoothly here; you could work into the girls' clubs, perhaps; no harm to try, anyway. Do you sing?"

Julia had to clear her throat before she could say huskily:

"I can play the piano a little."

"You see--you play. Well, what do you think of it, then?"

"Live here?" stammered Julia.

"Certainly, live right here. I want some one right _here_ with me. You can arrange your own work, you can read all the books you want, you'll come in contact with nice people. I'm afraid to be here alone at night very much, and I've come to the conclusion that we'll never accomplish anything until I can stay, day out and in. Why don't you try it, anyway?

Telephone your grandmother--sleep right here to-night!"

Julia struggled for absolute control of her facial muscles.

"Here?" she asked, a little thickly.

"Right in here--you can but try it!" Miss Toland urged, throwing open the door of the immaculate, unused bedroom. Julia looked again at the fresh white bed, the rug, the bureau. Her own--her own domain! Just what entering it meant to her she never tried to say, but the moment was a memorable one in her life. She presently found herself telephoning a message to the drug store that was nearest her grandmother's home. She selected a flannelette nightgown from a deep drawer marked: "Nightgowns and petticoats--Women's." She a.s.sured Miss Toland that she could buy a toothbrush the next day, and when the older woman asked her how she liked her bath in the morning, Julia said very staidly: "Warm, thank you."

"Warm? Well, so do I," said Miss Toland's approving voice from the next room. "This business of ice-cold baths! Fad. There's a gas heater in the kitchen."

Julia, laying her underwear neatly over a chair, was struck by the enormity of the task she had undertaken. A great blight of utter discouragement swept over her--she never could do it! Her mother--all her kin--seemed to take shadowy shape to menace this little haven she had found. Chester--suppose he should find her! Suppose Mark should!

Sooner or later some one must discover where she was.

And clothes! These clothes would not do! She had no money; she must borrow. And how was she to help in sewing cla.s.ses and cooking cla.s.ses, knowing only what she knew?

".... said to her as nicely as I could, but firmly," Miss Toland was saying, above the rasp of a running faucet in the bathroom, '"Well, my dear Miss Hewitt, you may be a trained worker and I'm not, but you can't expect your theories to work under conditions--'"

"What a bluffer I am," thought Julia, getting into bed. She snapped her light off, but Miss Toland turned it on again when she came to the door to look at Julia with great satisfaction.

"Comfortable, my dear?"

"Oh, yes, thank you."

"Have you forgotten to open your window?"

Julia raised herself on an elbow.

"Well, I believe I have," said she.

Miss Toland flung it up.

"We're as safe as a church here," she said, after a moment's study of the street. "Sometimes the Italians opposite get noisy, but they're harmless. Well, I'm going to read--you'll see my light. Sleep tight!"

"Thank you," said Julia.

Miss Toland went back to her room, and Julia, wide awake, lay staring at her own room's pure bare walls, the triangle of light that fell in the little pa.s.sageway from Miss Toland's reading lamp, and the lights in the street outside. Now and then a pa.s.sing car sent lights wheeling across her ceiling like the f.l.a.n.g.es of a fan; now and then a couple of men pa.s.sing just under her window roused her with their deep voices, or a tired child's voice rose up above the patter of footsteps like a bird's pipe in the night. Cats squalled and snarled, and fled up the street; a soprano voice floated out on the night air:

"But the waves still are singing to the sh.o.r.e As they sang in the happy days of yore--"

To these and a thousand less sharply defined noises, to the constant, steady flicking of stiff pages in Miss Toland's room, Julia fell asleep.

Miss Toland told her family of the arrangement some three months later.

She met her sister-in-law and oldest niece downtown for luncheon one day in November, and when the ladies had ordered their luncheon and piled superfluous wraps and parcels upon a fourth chair, Barbara, staring about the Palm Room, and resting her chin on one slender wrist, asked indifferently:

"And how's The Alexander, Aunt Sanna?"

"Why don't you come and see?" asked her aunt briskly. "You've all deserted me, and I don't know whether I'm on speaking terms with you or not! We're getting on splendidly. Nineteen girls in our Tuesday evening club; mothers' meetings a great success. I've captured a rare little personality in Julia."

She enlarged upon the theme: Julia's industry, her simplicity, her natural sympathy with and comprehension of the cla.s.s from which the frequenters of The Alexander were drawn. Mrs. Toland listened smilingly, her bright eyes roving the room constantly. Barbara did not listen at all; she studied the scene about her sombrely, with heavy-lidded eyes.

Barbara was at an age when exactly those things that a certain small group of her contemporaries did, said, and thought, made all her world.

She wished to be with these young people all the time; she wished for nothing else, to-day she was heartsick because there was to be a weekend house party to which she was not invited. A personal summons from the greatest queen of Europe would have meant nothing to Barbara to-day, except for its effect upon the little circle she desired so eagerly to impress. Parents, sisters, and brothers, nature, science, and art, were but pale shapes about her. The burning fact was that Elinor Sparrow had asked the others down for tennis Sat.u.r.day and to stay overnight, and had asked her, Barbara, to join them on Sunday for luncheon--

"Tell Aunt Sanna about the wedding, dear!" commanded Mrs. Toland suddenly. Barbara smiled with mechanical brightness.

"Oh, it was lovely! Every one was there. Georgie looked stunning--ever so much prettier than Hazel!" she said, rather lifelessly.

"Tell Aunt Sanna who got the bride's bouquet!"

"Oh," Barbara again a.s.sumed an expression of animation. "Oh, I did."

"Jim go?"

"Oh, yes, he went with the Russells. That's getting to be quite a case, you know," Barbara said airily.